It Ends in Thirst
by Beloved of Apollo
Summary: Killian Jones knows that Emma Swan is his true love. She is his north star - the sea to his shore, the spice in his rum. What he feels for her far outweighs anything he has felt before. No one has ever loved her the way he loves her. No one, that is, except a man named Graham. But there's no confronting the dead. You can only question the living, which Killian intends to do.


Killian Jones knows that Emma Swan is his one true love. She is his north star - the sea to his shore, the spice in his rum. What he feels for her far outweighs anything he has ever felt before. No one has ever loved her the way he loves her.

No one, that is, except a man named Graham.

* * *

The first time he hears of this Graham, he's eating eggs in a nest at Granny's diner, and Ruby is tending to a gaggle of patrons two tables to his left. They're young birds, each one of them pretty. Teenagers, by virtue of their age, were pretty even if they looked like buzzards. However, by that same virtue, they were equally bird-brained. An idle remark from Ruby about their love lives, and they start counting every notch in their bed posts. First boys they'd kissed, then boys they'd hugged, and finally, older men they find attractive.

"Prince James is really cute. He's the most handsome man in town," bird-one coos to Ruby. "Queen Snow White could've had any man she wanted, but she chose him. She chose correctly, if you ask me."

"Hilloa! No one asked you," bird-two squawks in reply. "And you're wrong. He's not the most handsome man in town – that's Prince Thomas. He's younger and shorter. Shorter men are easier to bag. They've got killer Napoleon complexes."

"You're _both _wrong," bird-three chirps with a clear note of finality. "Hilloa, tuh. Sheriff Graham Humbert was the most handsome man in town, and you know it. We were all crazy about him. But then Princess Emma came to town and… well, you know what happened next."

No, he didn't know.

But he sure as hell needs to find out.

* * *

So he asks the fishmongers one morning as they come in with their catches. It's a grey, cool morning, and fog is rolling in from the bay. They're not a friendly bunch, the old sea dogs, but some of them were privateers back in the day, so they offer him their begrudging respect. A portly fellow with a red beard named Shanks is the easiest to pry open, so Killian brings him a bottle of fine whiskey, and after inspecting the label, Shanks loosens his tongue.

"You mean the Huntsman," he grouses as he packs several cod in ice. "He didn't have a name back home, so the curse named him Graham Humbert. It makes sense, in a way. The man was raised by wolves and Humbert comes from the word bright and bear cub. Personally, I think he was named Graham because he was as dry and bland as the cracker." Shanks pauses to burp. "She's crazy, if you ask me. The Evil Queen. Ripping us from everything we know, stripping away our identities and giving us new ones. Crazy as an outhouse rat."

"I'm _not_ asking about Regina," Killian hisses, arms akimbo as he taps his foot against the weathered dock. This interrogation is going nowhere, and he needs to get it back under control before the tide rolls in. "I'm asking about the sheriff, about this Huntsman. I've met nearly everyone in this town, but the only sheriffs are Dave and Emma. The last time I checked, the few bear cubs around here live in caves."

Shanks shrugs his burly shoulders and picks up a wooden crate now heavy with fish. "He died a ways back. Heart attack or something like that. Only the women of the royal family and their werewolf attendant showed up. Henry Mills would've gone, but Regina was even crazier then. She forbade him from going. Locked him away in his room like Rapunzel."

Killian is silent and contemplative, one hand rubbing his chin as he ponders Shanks' comments. "A heart attack, you say?" to which Shanks nods and turns back to his work. He snags a solitary flounder from the crate, flings it back into the ocean with a sneer, and sings an old ditty under his breath.

"_Oh man, oh man – if man ye be,  
Or flounder, flounder, in the sea –  
Such a tiresome wife I've got,  
For she wants what I do not."_

A heart attack. Young, fit men don't suffer heart attacks. Graham must've been an older gentlemen then. Perhaps the birds back at the diner were mature enough to be enamored by a silver fox. Not Emma though. Emma went for men her own age (and yes, he considers himself the same age as Emma – three hundred is _not_ old).

No matter what, this Graham was dead, and the dead only rose as murderous puppets. If that ever happened, he'd run the man through with a sword and be done with the matter.

For now though, he'd satisfy his curiosity a touch more. All he needed was another lead and an appropriate vehicle for bribery.

* * *

He goes to Prince Thomas, who only asks for some male company while his pauper wife shops for their weekly groceries. The man loves his family, but sometimes he longs for conversation not recited in baby talk, whatever that is. Together they sit on the front porch, share a carafe of black coffee and converse as adults.

"No, he wasn't an old man," Thomas, or rather Sean insists as he lowers the mug from his mouth. "He was young, I'm guessing just a few years older than Prince James. At least a decade older than I am."

The young prince laughs mirthlessly and swirls the dregs of his coffee. "It's kind of funny. Back home, by the time I met Ella, I was barely eighteen but already considered a man. No one questioned my maturity. Men thirty years my senior were considered my equals. If I wanted to, I could've forced my father to abdicate and leave me the throne. Here though? I'm of legal age, yet a baby compared to all my old friends."

Killian glares into his mug. Does he have 'priest' written on his forehead? Everyone wants to confess their innermost thoughts to him. First Shanks, now Sean. Next, Dave would be sobbing into his mead as he came clean about his marriage to this so-called Kathryn.

"So Graham was closer to Dave's age than to yours?" he asks pointedly as he finishes off his own beverage. "That would put him in his thirties?"

A look of intense anger crosses Sean's face at Killian's nickname for the king. No matter the setting, Sean was a prince through and through. "I'm guessing twenty-nine, maybe thirty. David is younger than Queen Snow, so that puts him closer to Snow's age."

So Miss Mary Homemaker is older than Dave?

_How interesting!_

While not the information he needs, it's still a delicious tidbit, so Killian chuckles lowly. After he finishes off his coffee in three swigs, he gives Sean quite the shit-eating grin.

"You are in _so _much trouble when I tell Snow."

* * *

"Damn straight he's in trouble," Snow bites out as she shoves a glass of mulled wine into his hands. It has been a few days and several outings with Emma since his meeting with Sean. Snow is making dinner for what she calls her nuclear family – Dave, Emma, and the little prince. While he chases off the chill of winter with the spiced merlot, Snow sets a fourth setting at the table – a soup bowl, salad plate and appropriate cutlery for two first courses. The little prince sits in a high chair, so it must be for him.

"Would you like red wine or white with dinner? We're having pappardelle alfredo with scallops, so I'd go with white. David wanted duck, but I just can't bring myself to look at a dead bird and then eat it. I always feel like I'm being watched," Snow quips as she adds peppercorns to a pot of boiling chicken stock. He only understands the scallops and duck part of that statement, but based on the cream and cheese block on the counter, she's making some sort of white sauce.

When she sees his bewildered expression, Snow blushes prettily, he has to admit, and pulls a light blue box from the cupboard. "Pappardelle is pasta. You know, like the spaghetti Granny serves with tomato gravy at the diner. But the noodles are wide and flat, like ribbons instead of strings."

He nod as if he understands and takes another sip. "Scallops go well with white wine, but I see your table is set with more plates than needed for such a meal – Granny serves her noodles on one plate."

"I always make a four course meal on Fridays. Everyone picks one course. Emma wanted Italian wedding soup and I wanted pasta, so David got stuck with a salad – no duck for him. He chose arugula and mushroom with a Dijon dressing, because he knows I hate it. Not that I'll eat the wedding soup – chicken broth and all. But you're not here to talk about food, are you?"

"No," Killian admits before he downs the rest of his wine. "But I believe only three of the four meals are accounted for. Does this mean I'm in charge of dessert?"

Snow laughs and gestures for him to join her. He moves into the kitchen somewhat shyly, his steps stunted and short. Dave is almost completely thawed to him, but Snow is as chilly as her name sometimes.

"Nice try, mister. I already have dessert made. Pour one cup of the cream into the saucepan and bring it to a simmer. I need to get something from the fridge. Measuring cups are by the sink."

He pours the cream into the pan while Snow pokes around in the icebox. Her voice is slightly muffled when she speaks. "So you've been asking about Graham." It isn't a question.

His cheeks feel hot as he stirs the cream with a wooden spoon. "And who told you that?"

"Sean," she replies lightly. "He called me to apologize about the age thing just as soon as you left. He thought you would be here."

"I would never have revealed a lady's age," he jests as he adjusts the knobby thing on the stove. To the left for higher heat, to the right for lower, and he needs to bring the temperature of the cream down. Right it is. "But he's just a boy. He'll learn."

When Snow returns from the fridge, she has a bowl of cooked, ground meat in one hand and a handful of spinach in the other. "You better keep this to yourself, mister, for David's sake as much as my own. He doesn't feel inferior, but he once told me he hates that I'm older because there's a chance that I'll go first and he'll be left alone. Now that we have one heart, I don't think that's the case, but he has enough worries on his plate."

The sentiment warms his heart enough that he doesn't take offense to being shooed from the stove. As Snow dumps in the meat and spinach, the fragrance of fennel and pork fills the air. So it's sausage, not beef.

"I'll tease him about other things," Killian jokes, but Snow fixes him with a knowing glare as she stirs the pot with a wooden ladle, and all he can do is scratch behind his ear like he's dealing with his own mum.

"Everyone speaks so highly of Graham, but no one can really tell me anything about him," he presses on in a weak voice. "All I know is that he knew Emma, how old he was, and that he died at least two years ago. Surely that can't be all there is. People don't speak of the dead so much unless the wounds they left have been reopened."

The smaller woman's silence feels heavy as a whale, her somber smile even more so, and as she turns her eyes to the pot, her next words seem just as weighty. "Emma liked him. Romantically. He died before her feelings for him could grow. She needed time. Graham didn't."

Biting down on the inside of his cheek, Killian looks for some other meaning to her words, but alas, the most obvious choice is usually the correct one.

"So Graham loved her?" He ends the statement on a high note, hoping to sound nonchalant, but his voice cracks and ruins the illusion. Snow has the decency to smile in empathy as she nods.

"One night he kissed Emma and started to remember our past lives in the Enchanted Forest. The second time he kissed her, he probably remembered everything. As soon as that kiss ended, he fell over dead. Emma held him until the ambulance came, and she only let go when the nurses took his body to the morgue."

Snow turns away then, her eyes suspiciously red as she opens the blue box and pours rice into the broth mixture. He knows of Snow's history with the Huntsman, how he saved both her and Dave. He's read the book. But his mind is swirling and spinning like a whirlpool, and he cannot comfort her right now. Emma kisses the Huntsman and he starts to remember his old life. _He probably remembered everything_. That only meant one thing.

Emma was the Huntsman's One True Love.

Now his stomach churns too. The only way to break the curse is through True Love's Kiss. Emma kisses the Huntsman. The Huntsman remembers.

Killian kisses Emma in New York.

She _doesn't_ remember.

In the hallway outside the flat, footsteps echo, a baby laughs and Emma giggles like a schoolgirl. She and Dave are back from their errand with little Neal. He doesn't want them to walk in on this conversation, so he finishes quickly. There's no time for shyness. Casting a cursory glance over his shoulder, he asks his last question.

"If Graham and I had been here at the same time, and I was who I am now," _and not the villain I was then,_ "do you think she would've chosen me over him?"

Snow's eyes are wide in her pale face, but before she can answer, the front door swings open. They both look to it, to the people hammering their way inside. Dave is smiling fondly at Emma, who sweetly rubs her nose against Neal's. They're all bundled in jackets and scarves, but the real warmth comes from the love they share for each other. David for Emma, Emma for baby Neal, and Neal for the tip of Emma's nose.

He's seen her give the little prince _Eskimo_ kisses before, but the sight of it always fills him with heat and hope. Emma Swan wears motherhood as easily as her leather coat, and each time she dons the outfit, he pictures a newborn set of twins. The boy has his hair and her eyes, while the girl is all blonde hair and baby blues. Funnily enough, he quite likes that these two imagined children share their coloring with both Dave and Snow, as well as him and Emma. Emma loves her _nuclear_ family, so much so that he wants to be a part of it.

"We picked up the arugula and mushrooms," Dave says rather smugly as plops down the grocery bags on the ground. Snow takes this as her cue to turn back to Killian.

"I honestly don't know," she says as kindly as she can, her black brows high on her forehead. Killian feels his heart splinter in his chest, but he puts on a brave face.

Dave kisses the back of Emma's head and marches into the kitchen with a targeted look at Snow that says _I'm cold and you look warm – let's fix that_. "Don't know about what?" he asks in lieu of a greeting. Snow ducks around him to take the baby from Emma and tosses Dave a petulant look over her shoulder.

"Why I married you."

The other three adults laugh, which pulls an opposite reaction from Neal. Clearly the sudden burst of noise was more agitating than endearing, because a whimper gurgles up from his throat and his eyes screw shut. Emma presses him against her shoulder and coos a lullaby into his ear just as Dave catches Snow by the waist. From the corner of his eye, Killian sees bubbles floating to the top of the cream mixture, so he lowers the heat again and gets back to stirring.

_Do you think she would've chosen me over him?_

_I honestly don't know._

* * *

"She would've chosen you," Dave insists the next day as they man the police station. On Emma's days off – Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays – Dave forces him to dress in plain clothes and gives him a shiny copper badge to wear on his belt. Dave only has one day off a week, Sundays, but he's too busy thinking of Emma's welfare to worry about his own.

In the beginning, Killian hated the_ jeans_ and laced boots, but seeing Emma exhausted on Mondays made them easier to wear. That, and playing sheriff with Dave was sometimes most fun. Outside of monsters and magical mayhem, Storybrooke was a sleepy hamlet only blighted by the occasional drunken fistfight.

"I hope you're not just saying that because you fancy me, Davie," Killian ribs as he puts some water into the coffee machine. The brewer is the best thing to come out of this odd place and he guzzles about three cups daily. "Because there's no need for flattery - I'm already quite enamored of you. Snow should be worried."

Dave makes a rather rude gesture with his hand, but chuckles all the same as he sits down in his chair to swirl his own coffee with sugar. Beneath his eyes, dark purple smudges show the wear and tear of having an infant. If it were Killian, he'd find the equipment to inject the brew.

"Sorry Killian, but I'm not bending over in front of you anytime soon. I think Snow's heart would stop if that happened, and that would kill me."

Literally, Killian knows. Not because they share one heart, which is ghastly enough, but because they share the same soul. Dave and Snow were probably going to die on the same die, wrapped in each other and surrounded by family. Just like he and Emma were going to, but on the sugary shores of a warm sea, under the Stygian cover of clear night.

A pirate could go in no kinder way.

"Why would she have chosen me, mate?" Killian asks once the water churning in the gut of Mr. Coffee bubbles with promise. "He seems a right good chap, much as it kills me to say it."

Dave and he have an understanding. Killian treats Emma like a lady, and Dave refrains from killing him. Situations involving the ladies aside, the prince and he get along like a house on fire. An odd relationship to be sure, but one that works for them. On most days, Killian considers Dave to be a great friend, if not his best mate. When he moves his hand in a circle, indicating that Dave continue, the blonde heaves a greatly exaggerated sigh and continues on.

"He was fucking Regina," Dave says with a shrug. "They hid the sausage pretty much all over town."

The ribald comment, delivered so nonchalantly, doesn't shock Killian with its vulgarity in the least. Before Dave took up the sword and scepter, he tended sheep in the fields, and farmers, like sailors, had a crassly expanded vocabulary. When the womenfolk are away, he and Dave behave like the peasants they are.

"So that's it?" Killian scoffs as he curls up in his rolling chair, a cup of coffee cradled between his hand and hook. "She found out about Regina, and that ended their attachment?"

Dave shrugs. "No idea. You'd have to ask either Regina or Emma. Snow won't tell you. She hasn't even told me all the details, and she would've told me first. She _should_ tell me first."

"Aye," Killian snickers, not because it's funny, but to cover his dismay. Dave was supposed to know more. "I'm right sure you've shared many firsts. You probably bled the first time she swived you, delicate maiden that you are. Did it hurt when she broke through you?"

The prince laughs so merrily his face flushes, but picks up a paperweight and chucks it at Killian nonetheless. It swerves almost comically to the left, so Killian only ducks in a perfunctory manner.

"She scored my back something fierce, with claws like a panther," Dave chuckles. "From my shoulders to my hips. Her claim on me stung just as much as my claim on her. I was saddle-sore for days. Now get to work on Dr. Whale's arrest warrant. We're gonna have some fun tonight."

Smile firmly in place, Killian gets back to work on jacked up charges against Snow's erstwhile lover. Under the scrape of Killian's pen, an unpaid parking ticket from blocking a fire hydrant becomes reckless endangerment and a risk to public welfare. A mean trick no doubt, one unbecoming of a prince, but completely in character for a pirate.

"I don't think the wolf girl will mind if her newest toy spends the night locked up in jail," he tells Dave, who winks at him before returning to genuine police work.

They work in silence, but Killian's mind buzzes like a hive of angry bees. He can either speak to Emma of Graham's claim to her, or visit Regina, a dark and powerful sorceress who kills those who… actually, just about anyone.

Two women, one choice. Emma, brave and fair, or Regina, devious and dark. A woman who was enamored of him, or a woman who wanted him dead.

Decisions, decisions.

"Regina's not mayor anymore, is that correct?" Killian enquires. "She'd be at home right now."

"Mmhmm," Dave replies noncommittally. "Probably."

Of course he'd go see Regina. The conversation with Emma about Graham would probably be a battle, and no good soldier went to battle unprepared.

* * *

Not that there was any preparing for Regina. It takes two days to work up the courage to see her, and as he walks up the darkened promenade leading to Regina's mansion, Killian feels a fine tremor rolling beneath his skin. Despite previous alliances with the Red and Evil Queens, he still maintains a healthy fear of Cora's daughter (and Cora's vengeful spirit). On the nights he's fallen asleep after bedding her, he'll sometimes wake to a fretful Emma, pacing off a nightmare under the moonlight. The visions and specters haunting her dreams sometimes come courtesy of a hard life, but often they're the work of Regina, of what they saw in the Enchanted Forest.

Sometimes, he swears that the nightmares are a genuine curse, at least the ones that make her cry.

The memories of holding a frightened Emma give him nerves of steel, and his spine straightens like a spike once he crosses into Regina's front path. Not a light shines through the windows of Regina's home. Only the waning moon above guides his way, its cold blue glow dripping through the skeletal branches the oak trees. They creak and groan as he scuffs along the path, still in his denim trousers and button down shirt. Suddenly, the copper plate on his belt is more comfort than nuisance. He's acting as an agent of the law, enquiring after a fellow officer. Yes, that's the ticket, Killian tells himself as he takes the final steps up to Regina's front door.

His hand still shakes as he knocks sharply on the door. Two solid thumps, then three sharp raps. That's how Emma taps on his door whenever she's cross. It's the knock of someone who means business, and might just break down the door if it's not answered promptly. He's a policeman, square jawed and broad shouldered, and Regina is just another drunken dwarf.

Hands propped on his hips, thumb and hook tucked into his belt loops, Killian listens carefully to the shuffling behind the door. Usually, the hurried click of a high heel signals Regina's arrival, but tonight all he hears is the scuffle of soft soles. It isn't Henry – Henry is with Snow and Emma tonight. And it cannot be Robin or Roland. Maid Marian's heart is hardened against Regina, and she won't let Roland out of her sight.

The footsteps halt, a light comes on in the foyer, and then Regina and Regina alone answers the door. The soft scuffling comes courtesy of velvet slippers peeking out from beneath a silky bathrobe. In the harsh light from the chandelier, Regina's dark hair hangs in dull, damp hanks around a freshly washed face. Free of cosmetics, Regina looks young, but tired. Her cheeks glow pink instead of burgundy, and her mouth, normally overdrawn into a voluptuous pout, is thin and girlish.

Thin, girlish, and puckered into a tight frown.

"Just what the hell do you want?" she grouses roughly as she tightens the sash around her belt. Without her heels, the top of her head barely crests his nose, and Killian draws courage from his height as he stares down the blade of his nose.

"I want you to tell me about Graham Humbert," Killian says firmly. "I was given his badge, and I want to know what happened to him." It's a bold lie, but a harmless one – the badge on his belt is new. The only person to ever wear it beside him is Emma, all part of something she calls 'kinky role playing.'

Regina's dark eyes widen briefly in something akin to fear, before narrowing into catlike slits. The chandelier above her head gives a frightening crack, and he can tell by the hiss of flickering light bulbs that she is less than pleased by the question. Wind whips through the front yard, sharp and cutting and completely unnatural.

Definitely displeased, but he needs answers. Now.

"His story ended when he died," Regina retorts. "Yours could end too if you don't get off my property." The very air around Regina snaps with energy and tension, but Killian hears something in her phrasing, something no one else had even hinted at. He's spent his life playing word games. Regina will not win this round.

"You killed him, didn't you?" he asks in a voice so strong, it cannot be his own. "And you'll kill me too. Not for this though. For Marian."

The scar slicing her mouth deepens as she curls her lip.

"Maybe I did and maybe I didn't." Her voice is as the last hiss of smoke from a dying fire. "And maybe I _will_, right after I pluck a certain swan's feathers."

"And kill the mother of yet _another_ child you love?"

He means Roland, of course. Regina has tried to kill Emma so many times he's lost count. But she's only tried to kill Maid Marian twice, or rather twice-over, and succeeded the one time.

"Who's next, Regina?" he presses on in spite of the crestfallen look on her face. "Will you kill Snow and leave Neal with Davie? What about Prince Thomas and Ella? Their baby girl's had both parents her whole life. I'm sure you cannae stand it. I'd bet anything that even Henry would suffer yer wrath if it meant getting revenge."

In anger, his accent thickens to a common deckhand's parlance. Regina begins to shrink in on herself, curling around the ashes of her rage, but he presses on.

"I'll no have you go after Emma for saving a woman and reuniting a family. If Robin gives you his heart, a heart you don't deserve, he'll do so in his own time. Until you have your answer… no, even after you get it, I'll make sure no family is harmed under your hand. Not Robin's, not mine." He leans in close for this last bit, and Regina shrivels backwards. "As the old saying goes, tis only a stepmother who would blame you."

Seething with anger, Killian turns on his heel and stomps down the steps. Regina be damned – he'd summon the spirits of the dead before consulting her again. The blood thundering in his ears almost drowns out her desperate response.

"I killed him," she calls with tears in her voice. He stops halfway down the path, but doesn't turn around. He's too angry to face her right now. "I killed Graham, Leopold, Marian, even my father. And I will _not_ be made to feel bad about them. But I would never hurt Roland, or Henry. Especially Henry."

The light from the entryway fizzles out, casting them both in shadows like the villains they are. Regina's pitiful sniffles are the only sound aside from the wind, and like she insisted, he would _not _be made to feel bad about that.

"See to it that you Emma to that list," is the last thing he says to her before clomping away, leaving the Evil Queen to languish in the dark.

Graham can rot in the graveyard one more night. He needs a stiff drink.

* * *

And then he asks Emma.

* * *

It isn't courage that has Killian asking Emma about Graham. Neither is it desperation. He could've gone to the wolf girl, or to Granny, or any other person in this godforsaken town for information about the deceased sheriff. No, it's a sheer slip of the tongue that opens the conversation.

They're laying together in bed, sleepy and sweaty and sated after a night of eager love-making. He's huffing for breath, heart rapidly slowing as Emma slumps down against his chest. With his hands cuffed to the headboard, he should feel bare and vulnerable, but Emma's breath mists hotly against his neck, and all he feels is full. Full of life, full of Emma, so full that his skin is about to come apart, and his next words cannot be contained.

"Did you love Graham?"

It feels good to say it, and for the first time in weeks he breathes freely, like the words were a gag in his mouth. Emma doesn't startle or jump like he expected her to. She doesn't wail or make accusations. Rather, she slides her arms around his waist, tucking her hands between his back and the mattress. Surrounding him in all possible ways, he feels comfortable, and sinks further into that cozy relief when she responds.

"I was wondering when you'd finally ask me, you toad," she croaks as she noses sleepily at his collarbones. "You're not subtle, you know. Sean's convinced you're gonna dig up the guy and wear his skin like a suit, or eat his flesh to gain his powers."

"Cannibalism's a sin in any realm, love, and Sean's a mincin' ninny. He's just mad 'cause I go' him in trouble with your ma." Anger broadens his accent, but so does depleted arousal. The sailor's brogue is rough and unbefitting a captain, but it has Emma purring, and he feels a stir between his legs when she licks at him like cream.

"God, you sound so sexy when you talk like that. You sound like you should be mending nets alongside the Giant's Causeway," she groans before drawing his earlobe between her lips. His eyes practically sink into his skull when she speaks with the tender flesh still in her mouth. "We'll go there someday, you and I, and we'll swim naked with the seals."

Depleted arousals sounds like regular arousal in Emma, and damn it all to hell, he wishes he were ready for round four. Alas, the cat was out of the bag, and there was no capturing it again.

"Tis jus' a thought, love. You know of the women of my life, and I thought I knew the men in yours. Then your ma says you broke Graham's curse, and… well, I feel my sack shrivel up e'ry time I think of New York."

"Silly man," Emma coos as she sits back up. Her hair is limp and matted with sweat, and mascara bleeds from her eyes in two thin river from a pleasure so great, she practically sobbed. She's so beautiful it makes his heart hurt. "True Love's kiss isn't a skeleton key. It can't open all doors. Sometimes it just jiggles the lock."

He cannot help the chuckle her simile shakes from his chest. "Oh my ruddy, velvet rose," he murmurs as she stares down at him. "A poet you aren't, but a scholar you are."

Emma's smile takes the piss and vinegar right out of him, and he can only grin back at her.

"I'm not like my mother," she whispers, almost so lowly he cannot hear her. "I didn't find my true love on my first try. Graham gave me hope. He was soft and golden and _perfect_. And maybe I was his true love."

Here she pauses, and the black line on her right cheeks lengthens under a flush of new tears. She puts her hand to his breastbone, and beneath her palm, his heart murmurs, if it doesn't stop entirely.

"But he wasn't mine, and neither was Neal. I think you know who is."

Men can cry. Pirates can't. They just can't. But a pirate is just a man without a boat, and he had no boat, so he was just a man. Or at least man enough to admit the moisture on his cheeks was no longer sweat.

"I have my hopes," Killian whispers gruffly. "But I'd still like to hear you say it."

Emma's answering smile jolts his pulse back to life.

"Listen now, and listen hard, Captain Killian Jones," she says firmly in her best sheriff voice. He waits with baited breath, but she just shakes her head, sighs, and lays Graham to rest for good.

"I love you."

* * *

I honestly don't know where that came from. I think it came from reading Cracked's article on why the _Fifty Shades_ movie is probably going to suck. Jamie Dornan's short time on _Once _was mentioned, and I could only laugh, having never been a huge fan of his. Not because he wasn't handsome, but because the Huntsman was always kind of blah. Just… meh. But he served a purpose. Just not as a big a purpose as Captain Killian Jones.

Some brief notes. I pulled the three teenage girls from _The Three Little Birds_, which is the 76th entry in _Grimm's Fairy Tales_. Shanks is from the 160th entry, _The Fisherman and his Wife. _The show pulls from both the Grimm brothers and Charles Perrault, but I don't own anything from Charles Perrault, so… yeah!

Now, David's language, coarse and shocking as it seems, is an homage to James Fraser. If you haven't read _Outlander_ or seen the pilot episode (which you can for free!), you should. I've always found the characters of Jamie and David to be quite similar. They're both farmers at heart meant for greater, nobler destinies, and the love they share for their thoroughly modern women is deep and abiding. Of course, David would never talk like that in front of Snow, but he (and his bro Killian) are both peasants. Why not talk like there aren't any women around?

Please review, and watch out for updates from my other stories!

Oh, and that old saying? Only a stepmother would blame you? It's an old Irish proverb. You say it to someone who has committed a small fault.


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